[falcolas]

I'd say the following to this (very reasonable) argument against using AWS: AWS makes money by selling services, not collecting data. Should Amazon make the leap and start harvesting data from AWS for marketing purposes, the data from their analytics platform will be the least of our worries.

Thus far, AWS has proven to be safe for companies to host their data upon, and there have been no leaks of data stored in AWS into Amazon's marketing program. The HIPPA, PCI, and FedRamp certifications help back up their claims that a company's AWS data stays in AWS.

[Nullabillity]

People said the same about Apple, and then it turned out to be bullshit.[0] And, big surprise, their customers did not seem to hold them accountable.

So in the end, paying for stuff just shows that you're a more valuable product to sell. And gives them a great primary key to track you by.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22106536

[falcolas]

I've said this to most naysayers, but AWS aims itself at businesses, who are much more forward with their pocketbook and lawyers in protecting their privacy. AWS can't safely market data stored in their systems without running the risk of being abandoned and sued into oblivion.

Even Google doesn't dare monetize data stored in their enterprise customer's databases.

EDIT: Failing to offer a privacy-enhancing feature, and actively compromising and mining your customers data are quite different scenarios.

[alharith]

Google doesn't dare directly monetize data stored in their customer's databases. There's zero doubt in my mind they are piping everything somewhere, completely anonymized, and feeding their models.

[wool_gather]

> their customers did not seem to hold them accountable.

That story is 48 hours old; it remains to be seen what the effects will be.

[nemothekid]

>People said the same about Apple, and then it turned out to be bullshit.

I don't understand this claim at all. It's always been clear that if your paranoid about the state, to turn off iCloud backups. And it's not like Apple is selling your backups either.

[oarsinsync]

This is a tech oriented forum where we’re (as a group) more privacy conscious and more generally aware of how things are stored than the general public.

And yet even here, there is widespread surprise at the news that iCloud backups are not fully encrypted in such a way that keeps them private from Apple.

If we (as a group) have in some factions been caught by surprise, what are the chances that the general public are also not aware?

[nemothekid]

>And yet even here, there is widespread surprise at the news that iCloud backups are not fully encrypted in such a way that keeps them private from Apple.

Anyone who thought Apple kept iCloud backups fully encrypted was being willfully ignorant. Apple has been fully open to the fact that they share iCloud backups with the FBI, this exact same situation happened in the San Bernardino case where Apple provided the backups but the FBI cried about how they wouldn’t unlock the phone.

The tinfoil hat advice has always been to turn off iCloud backups. I don’t buy that anyone privacy conscious should have missed the fact that even Snowden was saying “use an iPhone but turn off iCloud backups” for the last several years.

If you got caught by surprise, then you weren’t paying attention. Apple wasn’t keeping it a secret that they would share your backups with law enforcement. The only reason this is possible is because today they don’t require you to enter a password to restore your iPhone to a new phone. Even the way the technology works today implies that Apple can read your iCloud backups without you knowing.

[adreamingsoul]

Or is that wishful thinking? AWS and Amazon are in the buisness of collecting, storing, and processing data.

[falcolas]

Can you provide a citation about that with AWS and its customers? Amazon itself, I have no problem believing (and have seen it in action. However, AWS is run separately from Amazon('s storefront, specifically).

If AWS were really aggregating customer's data stored in AWS' platform, I think we'd be seeing a lot more about it in the news. And there would be a lot more than just Walmart advocating against its use.

[shadowgovt]

Is that relevant? Nobody can provide such a citation for Google Cloud Platform either; the discussion is entirely around reputation of the parent company, not what the company claims it does with cloud services.

[whoisjuan]

AWS mining their customer's data is a huge liability for their cloud business and a blatant violation of their service agreements. Something that would fundamentally break the concept of using cloud services like AWS or Azure.

This is why this comparison doesn't make sense. Google Analytics is a 3rd party service where you have no control at all of your data. You put a script of your app, and then you basically funnel data to them. That's it.

Using Pinpoint, in this case, is the equivalent of using EC2 and S3. You can control the flow and the lifecycle of data (deleting data forever, for example).

You should be able to trust that your customer data is safe there, otherwise, why use AWS at all? or better yet, why use any public cloud infrastructure provider at all?

If you're concerned about that, you probably should build your own self-managed server infrastructure.

[rgbrenner]

There is one exception to this that I know of: AWS Rekognition will re-use the faces you scan with it for training and "to improve and develop the quality of Amazon Rekognition and other Amazon machine-learning/artificial-intelligence technologies." That's so vague, they can reuse it anywhere Amazon (not just AWS) uses machine learning.

You can opt out though.

First point under Data Privacy: https://aws.amazon.com/rekognition/faqs/

[thrav]

This is why I use Prime photos, instead of Google photos. I need one, so I’ll take the paid one.

[mceachen]

I wouldn't conflate their general motives nor their data handling policies between their b2b offerings and their b2c offerings.

[choward]

The idea that just because you're paying for something it means they're not sharing your data or won't sell your data in the future send a but naive. If you don't control the server you have no idea what they are doing. You're just hoping they don't sell your data.

[jka]

Over the long term it's possible that maximizing shareholder value requires monetization of additional resources.

The approach of 'today, company X is known to make money via Y, so we can trust them with private data' only works until that data becomes valuable enough for the company to invest in extracting.

[falcolas]

Monetizing data stored in AWS would destroy their credibility with corporations, who are much more proactive in protecting themselves (both legally and with their wallets) than consumers are.

[jka]

Upvoted, and I don't disagree with your premise - we'll see how this plays out over the long term.

[falcolas]

Well, AWS launched 13 years ago, and so far so good. It's no IBM, but it is a track record to consider.